Microsoft MD Neelam Dhawan quits to take top job at HP India

Microsoft India's managing director Neelam Dhawan has has resigned to join as managing director at HP India. Her resignation at Microsoft will come in to effect from 1 July.

Dhawan is returning to HP, where she was earlier vice president, customer solutions, having joined the company 1999. Prior to this she had worked with IBM and HCL. She took over as MD Microsoft India in 2005.

Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India, said, "I am sorry to announce that Neelam Dhawan will be leaving Microsoft to join H-P India as Managing director. We are losing a strong leader who has, over the past three years, helped position Microsoft very strongly in the Indian market. We wish her continued success in all her endeavours."

A 22 year veteran in the IT industry, Dhawan's departure from Microsoft comes amid the opposition from India and three other countries to the International Organisation for Standardisation's decision to declare software developers Office Open XML (OOXML) file format as an international standard, making it for Microsoft to get business from the Indian government, which prefers software compliant to International standards to avoid being at the mercy of software vendors.